Iowa town bewildered by former star athlete’s link to Sydney Loofe case |

Iowa town bewildered by former star athlete’s link to Sydney Loofe case.

Aubrey Trail and Bailey Boswell rented the basement of a house in Wilber, Nebraska, for at least the past six months. Wilber was the last place Sydney Loofe’s cellphone sent a ping to a cell tower.

Lincoln Police held a press conference following the discovery of a body they believe to be Sydney Loofe

As friends and family in Nebraska mourn the death of Sydney Loofe, residents of an Iowa farm town are mystified that a one-time star athlete from there is involved in the tragic and bizarre case.Bailey Boswell, 23, is one of two “persons of interest” being held for questioning in the death of Loofe, who disappeared after going on a date with Boswell on Nov. 15. The date was arranged through the online dating service Tinder.Boswell grew up in Leon, Iowa, a community of 2,000 about an hour’s drive south of Des Moines, just north of the Missouri state line.She is remembered as a popular and friendly kid from a good family. She was a standout athlete who once scored 25 points in a basketball game and is listed as a member of the fastest 200-meter relay team in Central Decatur Community Schools history.But after graduating from high school in 2012, her life took a wrong turn, said a former neighbor. Court records and her own videotaped statements indicate she was involved with drugs.“She got into a bad crowd,” said Madison Blades, who works at the local Casey’s convenience store in Leon. “She kind of went on a bad path.”More recently, Boswell and a male accomplice, 51-year-old Aubrey Trail — the other “person of interest” in the Loofe case — have been charged with crimes involving passing bad checks at antiques shops.In April the pair presented themselves as high rollers at an antiques auction in Pennsylvania and walked away with $28,000 in gold and silver coins purchased with a bad check, an antiques dealer said. Now, law enforcement officials suspect they were involved in a series of similar rip-offs across the country that might add up to $300,000 or more.The two were first identified by Lincoln police as persons of interest in the Loofe case on Nov. 28.

The next day, Boswell posted a video on social media with Trail in which they denied involvement in the disappearance of Loofe. She said Loofe, 24, was dropped off at a friend’s house after she and Boswell drove around town, smoking marijuana and stronger marijuana derivatives called “wax” and “shatter.”

“I just want the family to know I’m truly sorry. I didn’t have anything to do with this,” Boswell said in the video, posted Nov. 29.hope Sydney is found, too,” she said, calling her “a sweet, amazing girl.”The case took a grim turn Monday when a body, believed to be Loofe’s, was discovered in a remote farm field in Clay County, Nebraska.More than 27,000 people have followed a “Finding Sydney Loofe” page on Facebook.But while officials have released few details, more is becoming known about Boswell and Trail.The two had a very public reaction to being named “persons of interest,” going on social media to defend themselves.“Weird” and “strange” were two words that a veteran Lincoln police investigator used to describe their posts.

In videos, they denied involvement, complained about authorities “chasing us around like dogs” and tried to shift blame to police, who they said didn’t respond to their phone calls. In a later video, they announced plans to turn themselves in.

Boswell and Trail were taken into custody near Branson, Missouri, on Nov. 30.

“To me, they were kind of acting like Bonnie and Clyde, or James Dean — a ‘rebel without a cause,’ ” said Larry Barksdale, who teaches forensic science courses at the University of Nebraska-Lincoln.He said he’d never seen such brazen posts in any past case.Trail has a criminal record that includes two stints in Nebraska prisons for forgery and passing bad checks in Pierce and Dawson Counties. On the video, he also said he had been sought for crimes in Minnesota.“I’m a thief but I’ll be goddamned, I’ve never killed anyone in my whole life,” Trail said.Pierce County Sheriff Rick Eberhardt said he remembered Trail, “and not in a good way,” before he was sent to prison.Representatives at antiques shops and malls in Omaha; Lincoln; Falls City, Nebraska; and Hiawatha, Kansas; said that Trail had frequented their shops.Most said they were aware of his record of using bad checks.